As in the 19th century, the three legs of the advertising tripartite are the
advertisers,themedia,andtheadvertisingagencies.Letusconsidereachinturn.
First, the advertisers: retailers, manufacturers, finance companies, charities,
governments,lovingsuitorslikeMuscleman,andcountlessothers.Theypayfor
all the advertising, but advertising is not their principal activity. For them,
advertisingisameanstoanend. Itis,aswesaw earlier, oneofthenumerous
means of marketing communication. For many, it will be theirmainmeansof
marketing communication, on which they spend considerable sums of money.
These will generally be advertisers selling high-volume famous brands to the
general public: brands like Coca-Cola, Sony, L’Oreal, Toyota, Tesco, British
Airways, and tens of thousands more. Because their target markets are large,
they will use mass media to reach them, and advertising in mass media is
expensive.Butforotheradvertisers,advertisingwillbeafarsmallercomponent
in their marketing communications mix. These will generally be advertisers
addressing relatively small, tightly defined target markets. Advertisers in this
group will include businesses selling to other businesses rather than to the
public; or selling to hobbyists who read specialist hobby magazines and visit
specialistwebsites;orsellingtopeoplefromanarrowdemographicsectorlike
theveryold,ortheveryrich,orownersofunusualpets;orsellingtoresidentsin
aparticularlocality,inwhichtheadvertisertrades.
Bigorsmall,advertisersarethedrivingforceoftheadvertisingindustry.They
arethepaymasters,theycallthetunes,andtheywanttoseeresults.Yetalmost
nobody who works for an advertiser thinks of themselves as working ‘in
advertising’.Theywork,say,incarbonateddrinks(Coca-Cola),orinconsumer
electronics(Sony),orintoiletriesandcosmetics(L’Oreal),orintheautomobile
industry(Toyota),orinretailing(Tesco),orintravel(BritishAirways).Within
each of those large organizations, there will be people who work full-time, or
almostfull-time,ontheircompany’sadvertising.Butinafewmonthsoryears
these people may well be moved to another department within the company.
Advertisingis,perhapstemporarily,akeypartoftheirprofessionalism,butitis
not their profession. They do not think of themselves as being part of ‘the
advertisingindustry’.
Thesameislargelytrueofthesecondlegoftheadvertisingtripartite,themedia.
The media – in particular, television, print, posters, radio, cinema, and the
Internet – carry and publish advertisements in return for advertisers’ money.